THE SHINING SKULL
By: Kate Ellis
Piatkus Books Ltd: London, UK
2007 (pb)
In this, the eleventh “Wesley Peterson Murder Mystery,”
Kate Ellis continues what I think is one of the truly outstanding
mystery/archaeology series that can be found on bookseller shelves today.
Unfortunately, those booksellers are in the United Kingdom, and it’s still
necessary to order through a vendor like Amazon.com (USA or UK) to obtain
these books. Given the pound/dollar exchange rate, it can cost a small
fortune to have even a paperback shipped to the US.
But having vented my frustrations regarding the
obtaining of these fine novels, I will go on and state unequivocally that
The Shining Skull is the best entry thus far in this very fine series.
Kate Ellis does not depart from the formula she has so successfully used in
the past: introducing a contemporary mystery (usually one or more rather
heinous crimes of violence investigated by Detective Inspector Wesley
Peterson) and at the same time following the latest archaeological
excavation of Peterson’s college friend Neil Watson. Inevitably there are
threads of inquiry that tie together the world of present-day crimes and the
ancient world that Neil investigates. Many authors use this convention—some
quite successfully—but I believe Kate Ellis does it better and with more
sophistication than any other.
The Shining Skull opens in 1976 with the
kidnapping young Marcus Fallbrook of Derenham, Devon. A ransom note is
sent, the money is paid, but Marcus is never seen again—at least not until
thirty years later when he shows up at his wealthy half-brother’s doorstep.
Is he truly the long-lost Marcus or a fraud? DNA tests would indicate that
he is indeed who he says he is. Just as Marcus is returning—seemingly from
the dead—pop star Leah Wakefield is kidnapped from her home. A ransom note
is received by her distraught parents, and the police, including Wesley
Peterson, are brought into the case. Early investigations uncover a
disturbing set of circumstances: Not only does the kidnapping of Leah
Wakefield eerily mimic that of Marcus Fallbrook three decades earlier, but
the ransom note is written on the same stationery as that used in the
Fallbrook case, but the wording of the two demands is nearly identical.
Could the Fallbrook kidnapper, after nearly thirty years, be back in
business?
An apparently unrelated case is also under
investigation by Wesley and his colleagues—that of an obviously disturbed
individual who disguises himself as a taxi driver, entraps young blonde
women in his cab, cuts off lengths of their hair, and then releases them,
unharmed—at least until one unfortunate young woman is nearly stabbed to
death by the Barber’s (that’s his press nickname) scissors.
Meanwhile Neil Watson and his crew from the County
Archaeological Unit are excavating and moving nineteenth century burials
from a churchyard graveyard in advance of an addition to the church proper.
One of the burials presents Neil and his crew with a tantalizing mystery in
that a relatively young woman was interred in the same coffin with a young
boy. In researching the church records and local archives, Neil discovers
19th century documents and correspondence that tell of unusual
circumstances in the parish of St. Merion’s, Stoke Beeching in the early
1800s. There were tales of domestic intrigue among the parish elite, a
child prodigy who suddenly lost his unique abilities, and a self-ordained
priestess, Joan Shiner, who attracted local adherents—as well as vehement
opponents-- to her cult.
Ellis masterfully brings these varied and disparate
threads—some of which are separated by more than 200 years—together in a
most satisfying denouement. Four trowels for this little gem of British
mystery fiction!
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